The present invention relates to vehicle inspection and, in particular, to computer software that facilitates uniform inspections of vehicles for damage and for substandard repairs.
One of the most disturbing consumer protection problems in the automotive collision repair industry is caused by the improper repair of vehicles that have been declared xe2x80x9ctotal lossxe2x80x9d vehicles by insurance companies, typically as a result of being involved in accidents, natural disasters, or vandalism. An insurance company typically declares a vehicle a total loss when the cost to repair the vehicle exceeds 75% of the actual cash value of the vehicle. Often, when these total loss vehicles are repaired, they are not returned to pre-accident condition, because repairing such vehicles to industry standards (restoring them) is not cost-effective. Improperly repaired total loss vehicles give rise to consumer protection problems and pose significant safety hazards.
Specifically, improperly repaired vehicles may not perform safely under normal driving conditions and, in collisions, can literally fall apart. Current law does not uniformly require that a consumer be forewarned that a particular vehicle is a repaired total loss vehicle when it is purchased. Thus, buyers can unknowingly purchase improperly repaired vehicles that give rise to unexpected costly repairs when latent problems are later discovered. In addition, when the buyer discovers a problem with such a vehicle, the value of the vehicle to the buyer is diminished. If the buyer had known of the improper repairs or damage at the time of purchase, the buyer may not have purchased the vehicle at all. Also, improper repair of such vehicles gives rise to increased costs to insurance companies, because insurance claims are more frequent and costly for improperly rebuilt vehicles. The increase in frequency and cost of insurance claims typically results in increased premiums for consumers in general. Thus, costs of repairs and insurance, diminished value, and serious safety problems pose a significant consumer protection problem to the industry and to the public.
Also, government regulatory agencies have had difficulty regulating consumer protection laws for repaired total loss vehicles, because it is often difficult to detect camouflaged damage and substandard repairs after the fact and because there is no industry standard by which to assess the quality of repairs to a damaged vehicle. In addition, an affected consumer is often not aware that the vehicle has been damaged and repaired if no inspection is performed. Thus, it is not always evident when and how to apply preventive consumer protection regulations. Also, repairs to damaged vehicles are often camouflaged and are difficult for an untrained technician to detect. Currently, collision repair technicians visually inspect such vehicles, completely relying on their individual levels of training and expertise to make judgments regarding the quality of the repairs performed to such vehicles. The quality of each inspection is thus subjective and is not uniform from vehicle to vehicle.
Current automobile-related computer systems are directed to estimating the costs of repairs of known damage and to the diagnosis of known operability problems. For example, computer systems exist for estimating salvage value at the time a vehicle is being repaired for known collision damage. These systems are employed to provide salvage-related damage information to insurance companies. There are also computer-based estimating systems for estimating the cost of repairs, once the repairs have been determined. In addition, computer-based diagnosis systems exist for diagnosing faults in automobile engines and for diagnosing current operating problems, such as those caused by improper wheel alignment. These diagnosis systems examine only particular subsystems of a vehicle. All of these systems operate when there is known damage or known operability problems with a vehicle.
In addition to these problems, a vehicle that has been involved in a collision may be improperly repaired because the estimator and/or technician fails to detect and hence repair secondary damage that has resulted from the collision, but that is not directly evidenced at the point of impact. Such damage may not be obvious upon visual inspection of the damaged vehicle. Thus, the quality of the is repairs performed is dependent on the expertise of the estimator and technician. For example, damage of areas other than at the point of impact may be caused by shock waves reverberating through the vehicle body upon impact. Such secondary damage is known as xe2x80x9cindirect damagexe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9chidden damagexe2x80x9d and is difficult to detect unless the technician is familiar with the energy management (energy absorption) design of the particular vehicle. Thus, indirect damage is often left undetected and is not assessed.
Embodiments of the present invention provide computer-based methods and systems for facilitating the inspection of a vehicle to detect the presence of direct and indirect damage and problems with previous repair to the vehicle. Example embodiments provide an inspection facilitator, which includes an inspection engine and an inspection interface. The inspection engine and inspection interface interact to direct a technician or an apparatus to perform a uniform inspection process, capable of detecting pre-existing damage, camouflaged damage, direct and indirect damage, and substandard repairs.
The inspection facilitator directs a general inspection process as follows. After receiving vehicle identification information, the inspection facilitator retrieves vehicle-specific manufacturer""s specifications and standardized repair procedures. The inspection facilitator then directs the inspection of the underbody portion of the vehicle to determine whether the alignment measurements of the underbody conform to the manufacturer""s specifications. Underbody alignment measurements serve as reasonable indicators of damage or repair when the measurements are not within manufacturer-specified tolerances that have been adjusted for the age and use of the vehicle. Based upon the underbody inspection results, the inspection facilitator directs the inspection of the outerbody portion of the vehicle taking into account any detected nonconformities and proper repair procedures for the vehicle. An assumption underlying the computer-based vehicle inspection process is that if standardized repair procedures had been properly followed, the vehicle would have been returned to pre-damage condition. For each task in the inspection process of the outerbody, nonconformities are indicated, and the inspection facilitator dynamically determines and directs the inspection of additional areas based upon previous nonconformity indications. For example, an indication of excessive gaps between the hood and fenders may eventually lead to further inspection for evidence of welding to detect parts replacement. After the determined inspection areas have been explored, the inspection process is complete. The inspection facilitator then determines an indication of an overall condition of the vehicle based upon the inspection results generated for each inspected area.
In an exemplary embodiment, the overall condition of the vehicle indicates one of: (1) no serious damage has occurred to the vehicle; (2) damage has occurred, but has been repaired to industry standards; (3) damage has occurred and has not been repaired to industry standards; and (4) damage has occurred and the vehicle is unsafe. In some embodiments, the inspection facilitator provides a certificate of structural integrity to indicate the overall condition of the vehicle. The structural integrity certificate can be used to identify vehicles having substandard repairs.
One mechanism for determining the overall condition of the vehicle includes assigning a numeric weight to each indicated nonconformity and combining the weighted nonconformities at the end of the inspection process to determine an overall defect rating of the vehicle. Numeric weights are assigned based upon a determination of whether the nonconformity is a cosmetic defect, a poor quality repair, or a serious safety defect. In addition, the overall defect rating is qualified according to vehicle age, usage, and current value rate qualifiers. Other weighting systems and rating qualifiers may be incorporated.
In addition, according to some embodiments, the inspection facilitator generates customized reports that contain certain information, for example, the reporting of nonconformities in certain areas and not others. For example, a report for use in litigation can be generated to report a likely site or cause of a failure in a certain vehicle part, or other factors related to liability in personal injury claims. As another example, a report can be generated for insurance adjusters, which reports the extent and adequacy of past repair on vehicles of a similar type and the extent and cost of current repair. Similarly, reports can be generated for government regulatory agencies to report vehicle information for vehicles with substandard repairs or having stolen parts. Also, reports can be customized to incorporate state specific or nationality specific requirements.
The inspection facilitator can be used to direct a technician to manually input inspection data or can be used to direct various apparatuses to provide inspection data. In addition, the inspection facilitator can determine whether the inspection data is conforming or non-conforming or the technician or apparatus can perform and input this determination.
Also, in some embodiments, the inspection data obtained from an inspection process directed by the inspection facilitator is stored in a data base. Further, the inspection data can be provided upon request to interested third parties, such as government regulatory agencies.
In addition to the detection of damage and substandard repairs, in some embodiments, the inspection facilitator determines whether a vehicle identification number (xe2x80x9cVINxe2x80x9d) has been altered and whether stolen vehicle parts are present on the vehicle.
In other embodiments, the inspection facilitator is used to guide uniform inspections and/or repair of direct and indirect damage when a collision has occurred. In some embodiments, the inspection facilitator indicates the direct and indirect damage and indicates an ordered set of repairs to be performed to the vehicle. For example, an estimator can use the inspection facilitator to generate a more complete estimate of repairs needed as a result of both direct and indirect damage. In addition, a repair technician can use the inspection facilitator as a guide during the repair process so that repairs are processed in the correct order and so that all damage, direct and indirect, is repaired.
The inspection facilitator directs an inspection process of direct and indirect damage in a similar manner to the general inspection process described above. After receiving vehicle identification information, the inspection facilitator retrieves vehicle-specific manufacturer""s specifications and standardized repair procedures. The inspection facilitator then directs an inspection of the outerbody portion of the vehicle (which is typically a unibody frame in contemporary vehicles) to determine whether the measurements of specific portions of the unibody frame conform to the manufacturer""s specifications, taking into account any detected nonconformities and proper repair procedures. Then, for each task in the inspection process of the outerbody, nonconformities are indicated, and the inspection facilitator dynamically determines and directs the inspection of additional areas based upon previous nonconformity indications. After the determined inspection areas have been explored, the inspection process is complete. The inspection facilitator may optionally produce a report, which may include estimates of the repairs needed or a specific repair sequence and instructions. Similarly, the inspection facilitator may generate repair instructions and be used to guide the actual repair process, to insure that repairs are performed in the right order and do not miss nonconformities.
In some embodiments, the inspection facilitator is implemented using an expert system, which provides an inference engine and knowledge base to determine the areas to be inspected and to direct the flow of the inspection and/or repair process. Using expert system technology, embodiments of the present invention can facilitate providing uniform after-repair inspections of vehicles to detect damage and repair problems; uniform pre-repair inspections and estimates to comprehensively indicate necessary repairs, and step-by-step repair guidance.